The National Security Agency (NSA) is using Mythos Preview, a powerful AI model recently announced by Anthropic but withheld from public release, according to Axios. This comes after the Department of Defense labeled Anthropic a "supply-chain risk" due to its refusal to grant Pentagon officials unrestricted access to the model's capabilities.
Anthropic limited access to Mythos to around 40 organizations, including several named publicly and the NSA, which is using the model primarily for scanning environments for vulnerabilities. The U.K.'s AI Security Institute has also confirmed it has access to Mythos. This development is significant as the U.S. military is simultaneously arguing in court that Anthropic's tools can threaten national security.
The Pentagon's dispute with Anthropic originated when the company refused to make its Claude model available for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons development. The NSA's access to Mythos comes amid reports of a thawing relationship between Anthropic and the Trump administration. Last week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House officials, who described the meeting as productive.
TechCrunch has reached out to the NSA for comment, but neither the agency nor Anthropic has responded publicly about the use of Mythos by the NSA or its implications for national security.
